If is often said: "Let History be your Guide." (Although not as much as it used to be.)
Well here's a little geo-history, which may repeat itself if we smile and nod, and let its warning go unheeded.
Ancient melting of Antarctic ice sheet pushed sea levels up 65 feet
upi.com -- July 22, 2013
In one of the Earth's ancient warming episodes sea levels rose by as much as 65 feet as one of Antarctica's large ice sheets melted, scientists say.
Researchers from Imperial College London and colleagues studying mud samples to learn about ancient melting of the East Antarctic ice sheet found melting took place repeatedly between 5 million and 3 million years ago, during a geological period called Pliocene Epoch, and pushed up global sea levels.
[...]
"The Pliocene Epoch had temperatures that were two or three degrees higher [2°C to 3°C ] than today and similar atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to today," Tina Van De Flierdt of the college's Department of Earth Science and Engineering said.
[...]
Pliocene Epoch
File: Adriatic sea pliocene.png
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Those Pliocene islands would one day become modern-day Italy. (Once the CO2 levels and associated temperatures went back down.)
A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some
by Justin Gillis, NYTimes.com -- Sep 9, 2013
[...]
In one case, we have a lot of mainstream science that says if human society keeps burning fossil fuels with abandon, considerable land ice could melt and the ocean could rise as much as three feet by by the year 2100. We have some outlier science that says the problem could be quite a bit worse than that, with a maximum rise exceeding five feet.
[...]
In the second case, we have mainstream science that says if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, which is well on its way to happening, the long-term rise in the temperature of the earth will be at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but more likely above 5 degrees. [2.0°C to 2.7°C ]
[...]
Pliocene Epoch
File: Late Pliocene Florida.png
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Those Pliocene islands and historic shorelines would one day become modern-day Florida. (Those ancient shorelines may be returning soon, if planetary temperatures keep rising as predicted -- back into the slightly warmer range of the Pliocene Epoch.)
Well, we've been "warned." It's plainly written into the geologic record for all to see.
Too bad, too few of us care to read and then heed these dire warnings from pre-History ... (the universal "us," that is.)